Bengal flood: Mamata Banerjee seals her state's land border with Jharkhand, Hemant Soren govt warns

Mamata, who visited several flood-affected areas this week, blamed the Centre and Jharkhand for releasing water more than estimation causing floods in West Bengal.

"The central government's DVC and Jharkhand's Tenughat and Panchet released water into Bengal to save their state," the Chief Minister said, calling the flood "man-made".

The Hemant Soren government in Jharkhand has called Mamata's action of border-sealing as "hasty and unreasonable" and warned of blocking "all goods trucks carrying foodgrain and other commodities to Bengal", Times Now reported.

Ten districts in Bengal including Howrah, Hooghly, Birbhum, West Midnapore, East Midnapore, Jhargram, Bankura, Purulia, West Burdwan, and East Burdwan are facing the flood situation.

A deep depression over Gangetic West Bengal has led to heavy rains in southern parts of the state over the weekend and on Monday. Jharkhand also received heavy rains on Monday that prompted them to release excess water from dams.

The DVC released 90,000 cusecs of water on Monday night and 2.1 lakh cusecs on Tuesday.

"The DVC has released huge amounts of water this time. This was never seen before. Whenever Jharkhand receives heavy rainfall, the DVC always releases water to save Jharkhand. This is a man-made disaster," she told reporters.

In Bengal, district administrations have been asked to prepare flood shelters and stock adequate drinking water, medicines, and dry food.

"Flood-like situations may occur in the lower basin area of the Damodar valley due to heavy rains and release of excess water from dams and barrages... Senior officers have been posted in the districts to handle the situation... People from low-lying areas have been ordered," said Alapan Bandopadhyay, advisor to the Chief Minister.